WWF snackdown

I have a coworker that I’ll call Brun in honor of her astounding talent for brown-nosing. Seriously, she’s turned it into an art form. Like for example, recently at a team meeting, our boss asked what she could do to make our lives easier. Brun gushed, “Oh, S, you give us SO much support and SO much guidance that I can’t even think of anything…except maybe bringing us Starbucks every morning!”

HAR HAR HAR OMG LOLLERSKATES THAT’S THE FUNNIEST THING I’VE EVER HEARD!

Except not.

I made the mistake of meeting J’s (my absolute favorite coworker) eyes, and we quickly had to look away from each other lest we burst into hysterics. Of course, NOT being able to laugh made me want to do it all the more, and I had to compress my lips into a tight seam and think of, like, Rwanda to keep from howling.

Anyway, yesterday I received an e-mail from Brun with the subject line “A li’l something you might find interesting!” I opened it and found a link inside, which took me to an article about…

…losing weight.

As soon as the red mist of rage cleared from my eyes, I noticed that she had sent it to a few other people in our department as well, so I didn’t feel quite so picked upon. Plus Brun may be an ass kisser extraordinaire, but she’s not mean, just annoying and clueless. Still, come on! My self-esteem is in the shitter right now anyway, so that’s the last fucking thing I needed.

And this morning when I walked in, I had a magazine page sitting on my desk with a Post-It on top saying, “I thought you’d like this!!!”

If this is another weight loss thing, I’m going to lose my shit, I thought. Grumpily, I ripped the Post-It off the page and saw an ad for this monstrosity:





“Ack!” I said, hastily tossing it in my recycling bin.

Brun prairie dogged over her cube. “Isn’t it cute?” she chirped. “I know you like monkeys, so when I saw that I totally thought of you!”

“I’d be scared it would come to life and chase me around my apartment like Karen Black and the Zulu doll,” I said.

Brun’s forehead creased as she tried to figure out my reference. Eventually giving up, she said, “Oh, you don’t like it?”

“It’s a little…unnerving,” I said. “But you know what I do like? Zombies and cupcakes!”

She sat back down, and I booted up my computer, ready for another glorious day in Cube Farm hell.